laugh with all the sinners
by lenina20
Summary: In their usual fight for reconciliation, Klaus and Rebekah discuss Marcel, the bartender and the love in the form of substitutes. Implied Klaroline. Mentions of Camcel and Rebel. Post 1x02


**the originals one-shot | post 1x02**

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"Heard you tried to kill the bartender," he smiles from where he's standing leaning on his desk, the dim glimmer of his eyes almost fond as he takes her in.

She barely shrugs in response though; refuses to acknowledge the malice she spies beneath his playful words. Why must he like it so much, she wonders almost idly, digging his own grave like this? Perhaps, she supposes, because it's her who gets buried every time, after he throws the shovel to the ground and wipes the sweat off his forehead.

(The taste of dirt—oh God, how she hates it. It is so hard to swallow away. It always sticks right between her teeth. Gets glued to the pores of her lungs for a long time after she wakes up.)

"Do I detect some jealousy, little sister?" he insists, when she doesn't say anything. His blue-green eyes shine almost boyishly over the rim of the lowball glass, and she wants to spit at him.

This is what Nik does, even after peace has fleetingly settled. He pockets out his glimmering ashen dagger and sticks it in her heart without flinching, only because she dares take a tiny bit of her enduring love and sprinkle it away from him. Only a little bit. She lets it fall upon this kind young boy who treated her so well she might have been a queen. Look at his pitch black eyes, so warm; how they melt like hot, exquisite, exotic cocoa on her tongue—she owns these boys, they adore her so much.

But Nik—

—he doesn't like sharing the very little that he loves.

He doesn't allow her to care beyond the limits of his tainted love.

He twists the dagger in her heart instead, and she feels the pulsing muscle turning to stone. She feels the petrifaction extending through her cold, paper-thin veins; her limbs turning rigid as the dies in death; her lungs drying up like sandpaper—and an ashen doll she becomes. A dead cadaveric poppet for Nik to store away, keep close, hold dear. Never let go.

"The bartender is not important," she replies at last, nonchalant; feigning indifference while sharpening her fangs. Getting ready for the strike she knows she must pack now, if only to preserve the little dignity that he hasn't completely taken away yet. So she adds, "She's barely a distraction."

It works. Immediately he hides his eyes, drops them to the bottom of the glass he holds between trembling fingers, lets the mist of his gaze submerge beneath the amber glow of the liquor that he is drinking only out of habit. He thinks what he keeps hidden cannot hurt him—what a childlike fool he is sometimes.

Still, he doesn't say what Rebekah knows he is thinking, because she is thinking that too. _That's usually how it starts_. No—he doesn't say that.

He says something else instead—and look at _that_. Such unexpected, undeserved admission, barely concealed behind a narrowed glare and a flimsy, pathetic attempt at hurting her again, keep her squirming beneath his almighty thumb just a little bit longer before he has to let go. He simply swallows his drink, tilts his head in mock curiosity, digs his unshakable eyes deep down her spastic throat. He whispers, "I'm sure he's only drawn to her because she reminds of you."

Of course—

There's a slight resemblance, she can admit to that. The wavy blond hair. The pretty blue eyes. The kind-hearted smile—that spark of brilliance glistening right beneath the surface. The confidence. The warmth.

Rebekah is very good at playing her part in this sort of ill-intended exchange. She's good at fencing. She's been doing it for a thousand years.

So she smiles big and open, so sure of herself—a millenary, indestructible creature of the darkness. "Of course," she chortles, rolling one shoulder, moving closer to him, almost letting her hand bump into his hip. "It's the big smile and the shiny blond hair and the baby blue eyes."

Paints a rather familiar picture, doesn't it, brother?

He holds her gaze in his, unperturbed, and nods. Confession. Repentance. He even returns her smile as if relieved. "Works every time, it seems."

Rebekah holds her breath—

Poor bartender, she figures.

Marcel never loved her enough to sacrifice forever for her sake, and Rebekah can't help but remember Alexander and how she would have given everything to be human with him. The original betrayal, for which she has never—not once over the course of ten centuries, stopped being punished. _I want to be human_. I want to love and I want to live and I want to leave you when I'm gone. I want to be gone. I want it to be over.

It's such a joke—

Marcel never gave two damns about her, and whatever it is that draws him to the kind-eyed, ill-fated bartender has nothing to do with what happened between them almost two hundred years ago. Cami doesn't remind him of Rebekah. Nik knows that, of course, and the terrible truth is—

Rebekah could force him to admit it, couldn't she? With more words than he has already uttered, and with such shame. That it isn't Marcel and his blonde fixation they are talking about.

But how can he admit defeat so soon? The battle hasn't even started yet.

How can he confess out loud, to his bratty, stupid baby sister of all people—the shame that he feels, because the pupil has surpassed the master in so many ways, after all?

Well, don't ever underestimate her. Rebekah Mikaelson is perfectly capable of digging out her own dagger, dip it in white-oak ash and sink it into her brother's rotting heart as deeply as she can. Twist it mercilessly again and again until he falls limp to the floor, his whole body contorting in excruciating pain, his mouth opening grotesquely in a silent scream for help. Rebekah can say—

"You raised Marcel better than Mikael raised you." She is unrepentant in her condemnation. "He is stronger than you, Nik."

He is such a _boy_, Nik—he closes his eyes and shakes his head almost manically. The glass falls from his hand to the carpet; it crashes and shatters without a sound. The liquor damps and extends from his feet to hers, thick and dark as blood. "No," he protests, so helpless that she is almost embarrassed. "No, he will never know—"

But Rebekah has found the strength, the weapon to cut him off. "Marcel is not using the bartender as a substitute for a chipper, blond vamp girl that he once loved." Her smile is so sharp now that she feels its edges cutting away the unblemished skin of her cheeks. "He never loved that girl at all, don't you see? He always knew, because you taught him, that it was either power or love, and he never hesitated in his choice."

Poor Rebekah.

Poor Nik.

Poor unfortunate fools, they are all. Love sick fools, all of them.

Nik was right all along, but that didn't save him in the end, did it? Dagger Elijah, he decides, unapologetic. Family makes you weak. Caring makes you weak. Love is a vampire's greatest weakness.

Their only chance of winning this war is being able to keep up the pretence for as long as their dead hearts keep on beating in their chest. He knows that as well as she does, and so he quickly dusts himself off from the blow. He relaxes as if by magic, he's so well trained. He draws his hands behind his back and takes a step away as he rolls his shoulder like he doesn't have a care.

"May it be that Marcel never loved you, sister, but that doesn't mean—"

She cuts him off with a cruel laugh. Oh, she _laughs_. Bitterly and yet perversely amused. "Doesn't mean what? That he isn't going to fall madly in love with the cute little human bartender now? And give you such an easy advantage over him?" She watches attentively as his eyes close again beneath the weight of her steely glare, and what a victory—what exhilaration she feels now that the tables are turning, even if only momentarily. "You have a family, Nik. You're going to have a child. You have a secret in your heart the size of the Mississippi, so you _pray_ that Marcel doesn't ever find out that, besides your siblings and the wolf girl and the creature that she carries—there is also another blonde girl with pretty blue eyes and a big heart to get himself distracted with. Because if he does find out that you have failed to obey your own rules... we are all done."

"Rebekah," he growls, manic eyes widening. "You don't know what you're—"

But she cuts him off again, unafraid. Because, you see—"There's more at stake this time than just your bruised ego, brother." Listen to her voice, how it drops from fiery fury to a muffled whisper of desperation. "Stop playing games. Stop trying to hurt my feelings by reminding me of a boy I cared for who didn't care back. Not this time—not anymore. You are only exposing your own weakness now and, believe me, Nik—Marcel will not hesitate."

Doesn't she know that? She, who was rejected and replaced, discarded in favour of the same curse that has trapped her inside its iron fist for a thousand years and isn't ever letting go. So many times, in so many ways she has been rejected, that look at her now. Look how she clings to the desperately selfish love of the biggest monster of them—

—for as long as forever takes.

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**well... this was pointless. but I really couldn't help myself ;)**


End file.
